Another question to demonstrate my unfamiliarity with the game, but what does it mean to "control" a card?

The reason I ask is that I've recently discovered the Bear Island card for House Stark--being able to kill a character of your choice every turn for free seems rather powerful in the LCG format. I was trying to think of ways that it could be countered and one that popped into my mind was whether the other player could force you to control a non-Stark card, thereby negating the power of Bear Island. For example, if I play an attachment onto one of the Stark player's characters, do they "control" that attachment? Any other thoughts about weakening the power of Bear Island are welcome...

For my other question, do people generally play with the plot 'reset' cards (specifically, the one that lets you kill all characters, the one that lets you pick three locations to save, and the one that lets you pick three characters to save)? I'm just trying to understand whether they are standard deck fare or cards that are designed for more specific types of decks/strategies.

Any help with either question is appreciated--thanks for helping out another newbie on the block.

Q1: Why would playing an attachment on your opponent's character grant them control of your attachment instead of granting you control of their character? To avoid questions like that, players are considered to control any card that they play onto the table unless a card effect specifically changes contol. Controlling only Stark cards can be harder than you think, particularly when you think about neutral resources and characters that would have to stay off the board. Plus, the three gold may be pricey and you can always protect your own characters by putting attachments on them.

Q2: Most seasoned players have at least one reset in their plot deck. The choice depends a lot on the individual deck and player philosophy. It's a good safety measure in case an opponent gets too far ahead of you and, since you control when it comes, usually not a big problem for you if you're running away with the game.

On the reset issue - most competitive decks that don't plan on just rshing to a Turn two win use at least one reset, if not several.

On Bear island - right now its just a very over powered weapon in LCG. If you expand your playable acrds to icnlude Five Kings and Iron throne sets - you pick up a couple of soultions in the form of targeted lcoation control. But yeah - until more of that gets added to LCG, Bear Island is one of the strongest cards out there.

bear island isn't overpowered in LCG, it is just a card you have to think of.

If you have someone in your deck who you don't want to die you should be running something like bodyguard, nymeria, lightbringer, or dupes, etc. Bear island can't target a char with attachments so when i find myself playing against it i might just realign my attachments and stick a lordship on someone with a power icon if i don't want them to die. (plus it doesn't get stark characters so if you are that worried about it just run stark ;p)

Lars said:

Just to make sure no one gets confused, Lars is suggesting you run the dupe for the save, not for outright, permanent protection from Bear Island. Dupes do not count as attachments.

ktom said:

I guess my confusion came from the character included in the core set decks that you place under the control of another player; your presentation of the rule makes sense, I just wanted to make sure that an explicit command was indeed the only exception.

To everyone: thanks for all the insight on the reset cards, it's really appreciated!

Edit: One quick other question, just to be sure: a multi-house card (with the other house being a non-Stark house) would not disable Bear Island, correct?

No, Bear Island looks for the Stark Affiliations, as long as the Stark Crest ppears on the right hand side, the card is a Stark card.

Something about resets...

I'm a noob, I know...But I've to say that when you plan to play a reset you have to pay attention. It happenes that after Valar something bigger than before hits the table and for that turn you're not going to get rid of it (because of the 0 initiative and 0 claim).

It's a wonderful reset plot, but you've to plan it correctly, with some "restarts" in your hand (winter is coming in a Stark deck is good to get rid of the "0" claim, i.e.).

I lost a couple of games after Valar..It's not the ultimate cure for all evils...Now I play without it and with Wildfire assault and more killing options in the deck I'm fine.

I think Valar is good in an heavy control deck, that can get rid of upcoming treats gaining time with key events and some control-locations/attachments in a turn in which all you have to do is hope that you're oppo's draw phase is bad.

IMHO.

cheers!

The think with valar is that you know when it is coming and can plan accordingly as you can save from valar.